Fool Blake Miller once and you can’t faze him. Fool Centennial’s goaltender twice? Not a chance.

Miller led Centennial to a 2-1 upset victory against rival Blaine on Friday at the Warner Coliseum. Outshot 39-18, the Cougars were saved time and time again by Miller and clinched their second consecutive Class 2A, Section 5 title.

“Our goalie played out of his mind and gave them nothing,” said Collin Hughes, who scored the eventual game-winning goal with 1:03 to play in the second period.

Hughes, who said he “saw an opening and shot puck into upper right corner,” called Friday’s victory “so much sweeter than last year. We went back to back by beating our rival. You can’t beat that.”

Hughes’ goal gave No. 3 seed Centennial (16-10-2) a 2-0 lead over a heavily favored Blaine team. The Bengals, who held the state’s No. 1 ranking for part of the season, made it 2-1 on a power-play goal from Dallas Gerads at 2:45 of the third period.

But Miller denied No. 1 seed Blaine (22-5-1) a tying goal.

The Bengals swept two-game regular season series from Centennial, most recently a 3-2 overtime victory on Feb. 1. In addition, Miller posted a pedestrian .887 saves percentage in the regular season.

Coming into Friday’s final, the teams combined for 12 consecutive periods of shutout hockey in four previous section playoff victories.

“My goalies coach told me, ‘Once playoffs start it’s a new season,’ ” Miller said. “I truly believed that.”

Blaine coach Dave Aus was wary of Miller’s capability to steal a game. Aus, who watched the Class of 2014 play as bantams, said, “It was the same deal then where Blaine worked them over and he held them in the game.”

Ryner Gorowsky gave Centennial a 1-0 lead 15 seconds into the game, opening the scoring before most fans opened their boxes of popcorn.

Other than an unsuccessful Gorowsky breakaway later in the period, however, Blaine controlled the action, outshooting the Cougars 19-4.

Aus called the loss “a bad nightmare. I give them credit but I’m not sure the better team won.”

Blaine, on a 13-1 surge coming into Friday, was looking for its first state tournament appearance since capping a run of six consecutive trips in 2011.


PHOTO GALLERY: Section final hockey from the Fairgrounds